Nancy Neithercut - Life happens all by itself

 Dear Reader,

I try to carve a window in my chest
So when you look inside
You don’t see a heart shaped mirror
You see only your unutterable beauty

I can only describe what it was like before...
What happened, and try to sing of what it’s like now, after this profound permanent shift in perspective.

I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. I am not trying to change your beliefs or erase them. I know that you are not the instigator of your thought belief feeling or action, and that you and I and all thingness are simply a beautiful flowing thought dream...

I am not trying to change you or the world
I know you are unutterably beautiful just as you think you are, and that no one, nor the world is broken.

Some words may resonate, some may not...
Some may sound similar to others who have experienced this shift and some may not.

Many of my songs may skip the habitual thought patterns out of the usual groove of assumed knowing, and leave the mind hanging with no where to go. Some love this feeling of sensuous lostness... others don’t.
Awakening is not a belief or understanding or philosophy. There is nothing to get and no one to get it. There are no things to understand and no one to understand them... No place to arrive and no one to arrive.

I feel the pain of seekers deeply as I was once desperately looking for what I knew not...
...an end to the pain...
and I see them mouthing the words of teachers that simply perpetuate the painful illusion of separation and, well, I sing.

In this great battle
No one fights
Or wins
Or loses
Blood is spilled
Hearts are lost
Bones are burned under the midnight moon And the wind blows the ashes
And the grasses grow
And the long stemmed flowers
Lanterns in the summer sun
Wave in the wind
Softly tearing the gentlest of hearts
This unsung beauty
That ripped apart all ideas of beauty
This love
That conquered all ideas of love
Has no words
Yet is all words
I did not win this kiss of wind
That blew my heart into the pyre
I did not climb the mountain
As it crumbled into the sea

The tsunami of love
Crushed all and everything
Even these hands that type these words
Are not mine
This life never had a name
Shall I speak of it
Without one
My mouth holds its vowels
Round and juicy
My breath my lips sing
I love you
I love you
I love you

Love stretched out her hand... it was no longer an invitation ignored... there was no longer an option to run away from the giant hole in my heart...
or join in the dance...

She grabbed me and flung me off the rocky cliffs into the vast sea below... just in time for the tsunami I had felt was coming my entire life...
I feared it and longed for it... There was no going back� ...there was no back...

What is is that defines you?
Where is the line between you and the wind? Your skin?
Your thoughts?
Are they your thoughts?�
Are these thoughts you?�
Are there separate thoughts? �
Is there a little man in there �
That is looking for these answers?�
Or are you the looking?�
What kind of answers do you expect?�
Where did you get gave the idea that there are any answers?

Looking for meaning, for life to make sense, for a purpose, through spirituality or philosophy or science is what defines you.
The belief that there is an understanding to reach is what defines you.
What would you be without all of these ideas of something other or better or more or next?

What would you be without all of your ideas about enlightenment or god or purpose or meaning?

What would happen if you realized that there is no understanding, no certainty, at all? That no concept or philosophy you have ever read will ever capture this magic that you know is here, that you are a magical illusion composed of concepts yet has no words or concepts, that you have no solidity whatsoever? That all solidity is mentally fabricated and that all ideas of this and that are made up, including you?

Not even void or emptiness or infinity come close to this greatest intimacy that you have been fending off with words and ideas.
For enlightenment is the greatest intimacy.
There is no line between you and the wind.
There is no line between inside and outside. There is no inside and outside.
It is only these very words, these thoughts that are like razors, which seem to slice up endless sky.

When there are no words left, when there are no concepts left, when there is no more longing to know, to capture the magic
....it is all magic
and the magic is you

You find yourself drifting through the dream as the dream dreams you, and mountains and clouds and endless sky....
And lovers dancing under a moon lit night...
When all and everything is gone, suddenly all and everything is here, and it all feels like love, a lovers dance, of one of two of many of none....

The biggest myth about enlightenment is that it happens to you! Well if one of the things that happens in enlightenment is that it’s realized the person is imagined...
How could this happen to an imaginary character... you?

What if nothing can be known simply because there are no things?
What if there is no one who can step outside of what is going on, as there are no edges, no outside nor inside, to what is going on, and truly see the whole picture?
What if there is no whole picture?
What if the only way to make the physical world knowable would be to divide it up into imaginary parts?
What if one of those imaginary parts was you? �
What if you were the longing to understand, or know what’s going on, �
The looking for meaning or purpose, or your place in the world, when you are not separate from it?�
What if all ‘its’ were made up? �

What if the feeling of lostness �
Of emptiness of unknowing �
Could never be filled with all your imagined ‘knowing’?�

What if even this paragraph was simply more words seemingly separating what cannot be split apart, has no edges, and is not a thing? �
What if all explanations, all description, all words and concepts just point to more words and concepts, weaving an imaginary web of knowing?
And this assumption of knowing was you?

Self is that imaginary web of knowing, the dream of objectified separation.... the longing to capture what seems to appear...
To understand....

And the belief that by some force called personal volition there can be an understanding, a point of certainty, and that there are separate things to understand.

awakening feels like losing your mind...
and it is terrifying...
as you are a product of the mind stream and this thought stream creates the known or fabricated world,
it is like losing all that you know including the idea of a know-er...
it feels like you are dying...
that your world is dying...
that time is dying...
and for the very few who fall all the way....
there is not even nothing left

Bit by bit or all at once the illusion of separation is no longer believed or felt...
it doesn’t mean you disappear or stop feeling
The dream of illusion is the only world we can know There is no outside to the dream
No inside...
It’s simply always known that all separation You
Me
Love
Is illusion
Impersonal
Surreal,
Yet felt deeply
And somehow realer than real....

the ripping apart of belief in illusion hurts like hell As that is what you are
Its like you are skinned alive
and there is nothing under the skin

I sing these words so that I may lie inside of you and feel your softness
dance
a bud a flower a song...
roots reach through the soles of your feet� flourish in the fathomless depths of unknowing� branches extend through your fingertips into sky� sky reaches down and swallows you�
petals flutter in your heart�
waiting for the sun�
to rip you naked�
I love your beautiful clothes�
that no one is wearing

just this yellow mug
steam curling like hands combing through and cradling space morning streams 

over the canyon ridge
kisses the tall pines
and the finches gathering at the feeder�

poems are my love songs�
skipping stones across the sea�
I am in love with the ripples

there are no true words
true a word like pure
hanging moonlight on a pine tree
words are ladders to the stars
stars are words
small suns
light, a word
words create the darkness
and a person who wants to climb out of it

all words have been spoken
countless mouths have moved like mine
my lips kiss the sun and moon
my heart swallows the sky

love is a word that fills the world
pouring letters through the gap in your door left unanswered on the floor of your heart oh! 

the stamps are so beautiful
they smell like lightening in the dark
they sound like a symphony
that no one wrote
they feel like sounds
boomeranging through this emptiness
a love dance
awaits

Most believe enlightenment is about becoming a non human. But no one exists as a non self!
You exist only as an imaginary self in this passion play full of unfathomable sorrow and supreme joy.
This is not about discovering you are a something separate from thought and feeling, something unchanging...

It’s about discovering you are indeed nothing more or less than belief thought feeling....
a flowing thought dream...�
A mental fabrication
The second part of awakening, is that all things are made up, not just selves... All this and that.
When the self is known and felt to be imaginary, it’s not that there are simply tree tops blowing in the wind...
Trees and wind, although referring to a physical world, are also made up.
The story of all things and you is written from shared learned words by the brain.
Without your magnificent objectifying brain the physical world is unknowable. It can occur that the brain no longer believes its own thought stream.
The belief in separation falls away, and there is no more feeling of separation. Many call this oneness or unicity or wholeness
But it has no name
There are no its.

awakening is not logical it is not a belief or understanding or philosophy.... it cannot be learned or taught or given away... I can try to explain no thing ness... but the closest the intellect can get is interconnectedness... as thing less ness is utterly unthinkable...
yet... you know this somewhere deeply, and the urge to remember it is the seeking... but as unicity is already the case, it cannot be made anew, and cannot be remembered... or forgotten...

for many the dissonance of these two... the intuited knowing that there are no things, and the belief in separation (which they are) is exceedingly painful, and they look to people or teachers who say that they know of this oneness or wholeness or emptiness, and can give it to them or teach it...
they will say things like, ‘be still’ etc., but all these instructions will only perpetuate the painful illusion of a separate you with personal volition.

there are some who seem to have seen through the illusion of self, but seeing through the belief in all separation is more rare... this is a profound shift in perspective that occurs in the brain and is not something that happens to you, as you are an imaginary character

that is why a sage will use ambiguous words and phrases, to catapult the seeker’s mind outside of the usual grooves of assumed knowing

I don't know how belief in thought ends...
it is not belief in thought only, it is the belief in belief that ceases in the brain... there is no one to attach or dis-attach...
it feels like endless knots untying...

like the strings that held the sun and moon and you into place dissolving... like the inside and outside of a bubble merging... pierced by love's arrows... the skin the teeth the eyes the blood the bone the marrow of your existence ripping apart...

an unravelling of endless fairy tales about who you are and what the world is like...
until there is not even nothing left
no reference points whatsoever
no things nor non things
no goal to reach
no path to tread
no ground to land on
no one to land...
yet you remain
a beautiful swirling iridescence
colors sliding on the surface of a bubble
dividing the universe into an imaginary inside and outside painting love and beauty into the dream.

...knowing you are the dream
makes it all the more wondrous
It seems that most spiritual seekers and teachers are the assumption that there is something to find. Some goal or place to arrive, like finding a true self or timeless awareness or pure consciousness, or god.

There is a mostly universal belief that there is something solid and unchanging.
This path to god or wholeness or enlightenment is described, and often prescribed as giving up or letting go or accepting what is going on.
Or surrendering...

Often when the self is seen to be a made up story, the stark terrifying blankness of no self is filled in with ideas like a true unchanging self. Awareness or consciousness or love are comforting concepts to fill in that emptiness.
It seems it is rarely recognized that there are no things whatsoever.

I cannot say how this recognition arises. Certainly I never did anything or nothing to make this happen! It obviously did not happen to me! This ultimate collapse of everything and nothing is not an achievement and cannot be contrived, as there never have been separate things or moments or events. This is merely seeing what has always been. Life doing itself, looking and feeling like anything at all. An unbelievable seamless flow, without edges, nothing confined, nothing to be fettered or set free.

Although it felt like dying, it was realized that there was never anyone to die. Time is felt to be illusion. It always feels like the first and last kiss.

Such seamless beauty of no thingness, and all and everything spontaneously arising! Continually blooming and wilting without space or time. Naturally perfect without perfection or imperfection, life and love flow through me as me, in this love ballet without a center or edge, or goal to reach, neither moving or non moving, without direction or non direction, without place or placeless-ness, No words can grasp or kiss this knowing feeling that has no words, as all words seem to divide what cannot be split and has no sides, no time nor timelessness, no space nor dimension nor measurement.

Enlightenment cannot be achieved by any method or path as it does not happen to the imaginary persona. It cannot be learned or taught as it is not a belief or understanding. It cannot be transmitted, as it is not a thing.
I do not have this sublime emptiness and I cannot give it to you!

It is not about letting thought and feeling flow, or going with the flow as there is no one to let thought and emotion flow. There is only the flow, neither moving nor stable. There are no things to be permanent or flowing. All effort-ing or trying to not effort perpetuate the painful illusion of separation.
Yet the beautiful illusion of self and thingness, of love and lover and beloved remain, as no one can exist as a non self! Simply the belief and feeling of separation has vanished. This is more wondrous than any dream come true. I could never have wished for this, as it is quite simply unimaginable.

I see seekers trying to get a goal that they imagine enlightenment to be, like realizing it is all a dream, not realizing that that would include them. Or trying to let thought and feeling flow, not realizing that thought and feeling and indeed life itself simply flows as it does, including trying to let it flow. I see seekers trying to accept what is going on, not realizing that this perpetuates the painful illusion of separation, not realizing that trying to accept it is not accepting it.

Mostly I see seekers trying to get rid of themselves, and I weep, as the self is the most wondrous gem in the universe.
Just as you are, right now, without any effort or non effort, you are beautiful beyond compare.

As conceptual beings our entire known world is composed of shared learned words beliefs and concepts

All trying to rearrange them will not lead to the shift in which this entire mentally fabricated world of separate things and events is no longer believed, including the belief in a believer. All concepts are blown apart, all ideas of right and wrong, ideas of meaning and non-meaning, ideas of truth, or that there is anything, even a ground of being, which is unchanging. It’s is known always that there are no things to be changing or permanent.

Quite simply there is no true nature, because there is no one to have one.
The search for something solid and stable and fixed is based on the fear of our own non existence.
There are many teachers who will say they have found this thing called true nature or source or God, but it is just another concept or philosophy to fill-in the huge emptiness that the seeker knows is the case, but does not wish to discover. Staying with a teacher who recommends a method, the seeker is safe.

No one knows what puts a chink in the wall, the armor of assumed knowing, but it is not about rearranging the perceived separate parts of knowing into another all inclusive concept called understanding.
Awakening is not something that someone gets, it does not happen to the person in fact it has nothing to do with you!
Before the shift I never believed that there was a God or some force, intelligent or otherwise, that made life happen, it felt at times like I was doing life and at other times that life was happening to a me. Now it always feels that life is doing it self.

After the belief in separation fell away, the feeling of separation vanished. It is known always, without a doubt or anyplace for it to arise, that there are no separate selves with personal volition who choose thought feeling belief or action. All selves, including me, are a swirling of flowing self referential thoughts and memories, holograms... illusion.
All life spontaneously appears, all by itself. The notion that there is a source of any kind (god or awareness or consciousness or even void or emptiness, as some seem to suggest) does not exist.

Time is another illusion. Can you find the beginning and end to a moment? Are there separate moments? Are there separate events? What would mark the beginning of an event like my teacup falling on the floor and breaking? Would it be the dog’s tail pushing it off? Would it be the day I bought the teacup? Would it be the day I began to drink tea? Perhaps I could blame my mother for buying me a dog when I was a kid! As you can see there is no one source... I think the slipperiness of this is unsettling to most and so they love the idea that there is a mega cause or doer or god.

Notice how this commentary paints the movie picture of a cup falling, floor, table and dog. All words seem to create these things. Anything said about the dream, every word I say in this letter about the dream of objectified separation paints the dream.

Decades ago when I read Dostoyevsky, I noticed that he believed that only fear of god’s retribution would create moral action. However, this never made sense to me. As a species we have survived because helping others, and forming community is a physical and psychological necessity as well as an evolutionary advantage, and is wired into our brains. Notice how a man will dive into a rushing river to save a stranger. I don’t think he thought about it first... ‘oh god will punish me if I don’t do this’.

Here it is seen that all thought feeling and action, indeed all of life arises all by itself. Naturally.
Some may use the word god instead of wholeness or oneness or unicity. There is no word to describe that which is not a that... as there are no that’s...

I would say there is no unifying thing or substance, no thing that glues all things together, as all thingness is mentally fabricated. There is not one big thing that can be split apart.
All edges, all separation is imaginary. The mind or thought stream seems to create all this and that, time and dimension, all separate events and causality. All measurement, all division is made up. When imaginary separation is believed in by the brain that creates it, then there is the feeling that there are separate things events and selves.

The swirling thought stream appears to have a center that feels solid! When the intuition that there may not be anything solid or stable or fixed starts to arise the brain searches for something, for anything! For another concept like soul or consciousness or awareness or true self or god to fill in the looming emptiness.

When there is belief in the self, then there is also fear of death. Again looking for something solid that will not die, these concepts can be comforting beliefs. But all belief in imaginary things is never quite believed, and are accompanied by hope and fear. So the person seeks out those with similar beliefs, trying to ward off the fear.
I would say that the physical world exists, yet has no inherent qualities, as all qualities many have of god, like perfection, are shared learned concepts arising in that thing you call your brain. Man creates the laws of nature describing what he observes.

Intelligence and orderliness are qualities that are beautiful description. Some say to me that life is energy and seem to believe that they have understood life. I say, ‘what is energy?’, and more description unfolds. Most mistake description for understanding.
I would say there are no things that can be glued together into some kind of a place of rest or understanding, and no one to do so.
Understanding is a misunderstanding.
This beautiful immense intelligence many seem to recognize as the proof of god’s existence comes from your brain. You are the portal where love and beauty enter the universe.
You are the light of the world.

Science is a lovely description of the physical world. But to say that nothing is random or accidental relies on the belief in separation, of things and events and time. I would not say that life happens as it is written, or as it it supposed to happen, I just say life happens just as it happens, of itself so.

I do not reject science! Indeed I believe in evolution and enjoy the benefits of medicine. It is simply that all description is seen as simply that... description. I would say that there is no meaning or non meaning, no purpose or non purpose. Life does itself and all these qualities are templates, like good and bad, that are imposed on life, and are simply shared learned concepts.
I often hear the story that god split himself up so that he could find himself again. That seems like a nice fairytale, and horrible for seekers who are in a lot of pain when they feel that they are not fulfilling their, or god’s purpose!

The seeker is the seeking, the grasping, the searching for an intuited wholeness which all ready is the case. All trying to grasp these concepts, even emptiness, perpetuates the painful feeling of separation, of a grasper and something to get

We evolved as all creatures to seek food and procreation and conditions that will keep the organism and species alive, but humans are the only creatures to seek imaginary things like happiness and love.

Feeling like a separate lonely individual feels wrong! For some this feeling is so painful, after trying physical means to fill that emptiness they fear, they turn to religion and spirituality.

For that looming feeling of emptiness is the intuition that there is no solidity, no handholds, that all reference points are imaginary. This, brought to the forefront could make a person mad. Yet it is so! As an imaginary persona you are alone. And ultimately, knowing all thingness is made up, knowing you exist as this swirling thought dream which allows the awareness of aliveness, the awareness of being aware, you are sublimely alone.

When there is the belief in separation, it makes perfect sense that if there is thought, there is a thinker. If there is feeling, there must be a feeler. When there is action, there must be an actor. And if this magnificence of life... there must be a conductor, purpose and meaning.

There is nothing wrong or right with these beliefs. Indeed there is no right or wrong way to feel or think or live or love or die.
All of life happens all by itself, looking and feeling like anything at all.

As humans we get to feel the entire range of human emotion. Unutterable joy and heart wrenching sorrow and despair.

There is not something inside of us which feels so deeply. It is us.
I am the loving of you,
Nancy

Forward to new book
Should be out in a week or so

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